Hudson Dusters

The Hudson Dusters was a New York City street gang that existed from the 1890s to 1917, dominating crime on the Lower East Side and along the Hudson River. The gang was called the "Hudson Dusters" because of its location along the waterfront and due to its members' frequent consumption of cocaine, making them insane. The gang reached a strength of 300 people by the 1910s, and it drove the rival Gopher Gang from the waterfront. Gopher gangster Owney Madden would wage his own war against the Dusters, and the last surviving members of the gang were arrested by the NYPD in 1916 during their cleansing of Manhattan.